The disclosed embodiments are is generally within the field of personal navigation. One of the basic user scenarios in this field is the ‘Find nearest’ problem: What are the close by restaurants? What are the nearest gasoline stations or cinemas? Which people are around?
Also in the field of navigation is the closely related “Orient myself” problem: Where am I? How far am I from the nearest subway station? How long will it take me to get there?
The “Find nearest” and “Orient myself” problems primarily occur when a user enters unknown turf, during business or leisure traveling, when exploring parts of a city not visited frequently by the user, etc. As the working life as well as the private life are getting even more mobile and outgoing, the need for fast, easy-to-use and portable solutions to “Find nearest” and “Orient myself” problems are getting even more relevant.
Before the era of the Internet and mobile communication, the most common solutions to “Find nearest” and “Orient myself” problems were roadmaps, street signs, guide books such as Lonely Planet, and asking strangers for directions. These solutions were limited in the sense that the achieved information were often outdated or inadequate and it would often take the person quite some time to find what he or she was looking for. Furthermore, these solutions seriously lacked a coolness factor, as the user would have to stand around with a clumsy map and try to orient herself, which often lead to the user making a fast (and thus un-informed) choice to avoid too much public embarrassment.
With the advent of the Internet, content service providers such as Yahoo and Map24 started offering on-line applications allowing the user to key in his or her position along with a specification of what he or she was looking for. In more advanced versions, the application would then provide a list of the nearest options and potentially a route description of how to get there shown on a map. Such solutions suggested more options to the user and worked faster than the pre-Internet solutions mentioned above. However, as these web based solutions were not portable, the user would still be left with only a paper map when on the go.
Recently, personal orientation solutions such as those provided by Yahoo, Map24 and the like, have been embedded in mobile phone technology to overcome the lack of portability. One example of such a solution is the Wayfinder software based on the Nokia S60 platform. Here, the user can enter his or her position via textual input (e.g. street name, street number, city, country) and subsequently choose what to look for or specify a destination, and information about the destination and route suggestions are provided to the user.
The S60 technology does provide a portable solution to “Find nearest” and “Orient myself” problems, but there is room for improvement. With the current solution, the user has to provide several pieces of textual input before he finds what he is looking for. Also, the user will often have to iterate the input several times to seek out different options. Furthermore, it can be difficult for the user to see the information presented on the display, as the application originally was adapted for the significantly larger display connected to a personal computer. Thus, the current solution does not provide a fast, easy and cool solution to the “Find nearest” and “Orient myself” problems.